Vision based vehicle handling assistant devices, particularly those providing a parking assist function including a rear view camera system are well known and widely applied in the automotive industry.
However, known vision vehicle handling assistant devices have some drawbacks. For example, the vision vehicle handling assistant device may present a predicted moving track of the vehicle on a display, the moving track is rendered in different colors to indicate different distances. The moving track is drawn in opaque lines on an environment image, that is, if an object, such as an obstacle appears in the environment image, the moving track and the obstacle directly overlap. Such an overlay makes the images appear unnatural, and the function of indication of the distance, which is an important function of the moving track is attenuated. The opaque lines of the moving track cover the image of the obstacle, the observation of the driver is interfered and the correct distance is hard to determine.
FIG. 6a shows an image presented by a popular vision vehicle parking assistant devices. When an obstacle (a pedestrian) appears behind the vehicle, a predicted moving track (composed of vertical and horizontal lines) and the image of the obstacle overlap. Since both the moving track and the obstacle are opaque, the presented image looks unreal, and it is also difficult to correctly estimate a distance.
FIG. 7a is an image presented by another kind of vision vehicle parking assistant devices. This is a bird's-eye view parking assistant device, however, the problem still exists, a predicted moving track and an obstacle (another vehicle) overlap.